PORT ANGELES — City staff will next come to City Council members in March for direction on proceeding with designs for the city’s landfill-stabilization project, according to Public Works Director Glenn Cutler.

Before it goes back to the City Council, Cutler said last week, bluff-stabilization plans will be discussed at the Feb. 12 and March 12 meetings of the Utility Advisory Committee, which is a subcommittee of the City Council.

City staff members initially thought discussions on this matter could be held at the City Council level in February, but Cutler said it was decided later that they would need more time to prepare the necessary information.

At the Feb. 12 Utility Advisory Committee meeting, Cutler said he will talk about the various opportunities for public comment on the bluff project, which will include input on the various permits the city will need for the work.

At the March 12 advisory committee meeting, Cutler said he plans to discuss additions to the city’s agreement with Seattle-based Herrera Environmental Consultants, which is the contracted designer for the landfill bluff-stabilization project.

The city is working with the consultant on how to best prevent a 135-foot-tall bluff in west Port Angeles that is holding back decades of garbage accumulated in the city’s inactive landfill from failing and releasing the waste into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Utility Advisory Committee meetings are held in the Jack Pittis Conference Room at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.

Cutler said he plans to ask City Council members at their March 19 meeting for permission to allow the Seattle company to proceed to the next level of designing the bluff-stabilization project.

Council members will decide to take action then or hold over consideration until the April 2 meeting, Cutler said.

Any action taken will not be on final designs for the project, since preliminary design work is still in process.

“Nothing has been decided on, and no final design has been made,” Cutler said.